I was surprised Naughton was picked. Thought we may have seen Dawson come in with Verts shifted to LB. Decent performance though, shaky in the first half but grew as the game went on, understandable as he hasn't kicked a ball yet AND was on his unfavoured side.
Its the one thing KN hasn't been credited for yet, he played both sides quite comfortably for Norwich, was I the only one who noticed that? a versatile/utlity FB is rare and we'd be fools to have let him go for this very reason imo, a usefull addition to the squad.
He only played about 4/5 games at LB for NCFC I think. He's played there for Sheff Utd too but I wouldn't say he's entirely comfortable in the position. He got skinned a couple of times in the first half as the Reading winger was dribbling on the outside where Naughton would need to defend with his left which naturally isn't his stronger foot and it showed. As I said though, he grew as the game went on and didn't let the side down, solid performance. Agreed though that he's a useful squad member. Versatility should never be disregarded. He can also play RM if need be, actually has a really decent cross on him, far better than Walker's & Lennon's.
Losing one player shouldn't mean making two changes. We need Verts to get a proper partnership going in the centre of defence. If we lose a fullback, we should make one change and bring our second choice full back on, which we did. If we run out of fullbacks, then we can think about other changes. BTW, I agree that Naughton needs to tackle with his left foot more. I put it down to confidence, because even at RB he'd need to be comfortable tackling off his left. He wouldn't have got this far if he was that one sided.
Fair point about making too many changes. Vertonghen probably needs more minutes at CB before being swiched about.
I like the potential of Kyle Naughton and hopefully he can play a lot of games for us this season in the cups, europe and in the league when BAE isn't available.
It's typical that Assou-Ekotto gets injured just after Rose goes out on loan for the season, isn't it? His debut for Sunderland was fairly encouraging, from what I saw of it, but he's making noises about a permanent move already. We'll have to see how that goes, I guess. As SoS says, Naughton started off the game a little shakily, but he grew into it. Bearing in mind that he wouldn't have had much notice that he was going to be playing, let alone in a slightly unfamiliar position, I thought he did pretty well. Bale should adjust his game accordingly and try to give him more protection, while getting a bit further wide when we attack to allow more space for right footed diagonal crosses from the full-back. Perhaps playing that'll suit Townsend, if they both start on that side against Lazio?
As do I. It was us changing things last year than f'd it all up. Modric to the left and Sandro and Livermore/Parker in the middle n all that tosh. If Naughton can't get in the team when Benny and Rose arn't able to, then when can he? (on the left) Is he also Walkers back up? I thought he showed glimpses of class, the pass out for Defoe being one. He sprayed it around quite well, and other than some first half positional problems and using his wrong foot, I thought he was ok. Not too sure if he was up against Hazard or Nani though.
I don't think KN will raise himself to be a regular starter, but its difficult to see who better we could have waiting to play as cover.
Nathan Byrne played at LB in pre-season, didn't he? I seem to remember somebody mentioning it on here.
I don't know mate, if I'm honest I wasn't really in to the swing of pre-season this year, not watching any of it live, just highlights.
I don't think Byrne played on the pre-season tour. He did well recently in one of the reserve games playing at left-back behind Townsend, if I remember right.
Naughton scared me at first, looked much better later on. I'm all in favor of giving younger players a chance--you never know when someone will shine--especially in what may be a transtion year.
Fully agree ... Harry constantly played wrong players in wrong positions when someone was injured and it always went wrong!
For decades to come, scholars will debate about who played where in the formation we put out at Stevenage.
Harry "I'll show you how tactically flexible I can be" Rednapp at his best God knows why I am laughing ... that's 2 hours I will never get back!
